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Statement of Need: APHIS prohibits or restricts the importation of living plants, plant parts, and seeds for propagation to prevent the introduction of plant pests and noxious weeds into the United States. Recently, APHIS began requiring a phytosanitary certificate of inspection for all imported nursery stock, including small lots of seed. In response to requests from several entities who have had difficulty obtaining a phytosanitary certificate for small lots of seed or found the costs to be too high, APHIS is amending the regulations to allow small lots of seed to be imported under an import permit, with specific conditions, instead of with a phytosanitary certificate. APHIS has determined that this alternative for small lots of seed will provide an equivalent level of phytosanitary protection.

Summary of the Legal Basis: The Plant Protection Act (7 USC 7701 to 7773) authorizes the Secretary to prohibit or restrict the importation of any plant, plant product, or other article if the Secretary determines that the prohibition or restriction is necessary to prevent the introduction of a plant pest into the United States.

Alternatives: APHIS could have continued requiring that imported seeds be inspected and be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate. However, in the countries that do offer inspection and certification services for small lots of seed, the costs of these services has been prohibitive for the seed importers. As a result, seed importers have either been unable to obtain the necessary phytosanitary certificates for small lots of seed or have had to pay fees that greatly exceeded the value of the seeds themselves. We rejected this alternative because maintaining the status quo would not be an economically feasible option for importers of small lots of seed, and because our preferred action imposes only those restrictions on the importation of small lots of seed that are necessary to prevent the introduction of plant pests into the United States.

Anticipated Costs and Benefits: The changes will result in a slight cost increase for the Federal Government since import permits and the port of entry inspection activities are currently provided without a fee. If the changes result in increased importation of small lots of seed, there could also be a slight increase in the workload for processing the permits, but, since imports of small lots of seed are a very small fraction of the total domestic supply of seeds, no significant change in supply or price is expected. However, as a result of these changes, seed importers will be able to more widely acquire new kinds of seeds to expand plant diversity, private gardeners will benefit from an increased availability of special seeds, the entry of imported seeds through plant inspection stations will provide APHIS with a more accurate picture of seed import activity, and we expect that the risk of the introduction or dissemination of plant diseases due to illegal importation will be reduced.

Risks: This rulemaking sets import conditions that address the risks associated with importing small lots of seed into the United States.